In the meantime I'll get you all the information you need to guide you through the morning.

2.10am: There are Brits in action already people. The inaugural women's 10k open-water swim is underway and Team GB's Cassie Patten and Keri-Anne Payne have medal aspirations. After the first 500m Payne is out at the front. But don't go expecting a medal yet as there's a lot of clear water left in this one. Payne obviously can't see where she's going, as she bounces off a bouy at the 13-minute mark.

2.20am: This is very much the New Olympic Sport Morning. BMX action has just bunny-hopped into life on a dusty track somewhere in China. It's pretty exciting stuff, if I'm being honest. The BMX-er (is that what they're called?) flies down a hill and then jumps over a dozen or so humps - bobbing up and down like a grasshopper - and finally flirts over the finish line. It's all over pretty quickly, but it's fun while it lasts. Britain's Liam Phillips and Shanaze will be competing at some point. I'll keep you updated.

2.25am: British pair Cassie Paten and Keri-Anne Payne are leading the 10k open-water race... but hold your horses Team GB fans, as third-placed Russian Larisa Ilchenko has never lost an open-water race, so how's that for having your chips dampened?

2.30am: Wow! The BMX-ing is the BEST thing ever. An Australian called Kamakazi has just hopped his way around the track. Apparently he changed his name by deed poll because he's such a crazy guy.

2.35am: Liam Phillips was so quick for Britain 37.392sec that I missed him. But he wasn't fast enough to gain the lead in the time-trial. I'll update you as to his place when somebody in Beijing can work out what's going on amid the din of an American PA and French electro duo MGMT.

2.40am: A pleasant email from an antipodean: "Without wanting to get ahead of myself, let me be the first Aussie to congratulate you Brits on finishing ahead of us on the medal tally. It's been a super effort." Thanks William Sinclair. "But I'm hugely proud of the Australian athletes who have, as usual, punched miles above their weight and, to a man and woman, conducted themselves brilliantly. The fact we'll finish behind our brothers and sisters in Britain for the first time in 20 years is unfortunate, but I can guarantee you that, like a losing Ashes team, we'll be using this to come back stronger than ever!" I can almost hear the collective sacking of sports coaches in Melbourne William. Meanwhile in the land of men's beach volleyball the US are one set up against Georgia in the semi-final. It's like watching that homo-erotic scene from Top Gun.

2.45am: All the BMX competitors have kept their helmets on so it's my reckoning that they're all 44-year old former skate-punks. BMX-ing was huge around the time of ET you see. On the subject of the BMX-ing: "Is it me or is the course not challenging enough?" asks Michael Lee. "Seventeen riders gone so far and no wipe-outs. It is only a 36 second-long course, and all riders are separated by just a 0.9 second gap. Maybe a couple of 30 metre-jumps should be included. Over crocodile-infested water. That would make things more exciting. Are there any other suggestions how we could liven this event up?" You're a hard man to please Michael. What about scattering tacks and oil on the rack? Perhaps even a few banana skins. failing that give them fixed-wheel bikes.

2.55am: GB's Cassie Patten and Keri-Anne Payne are still leading the 10k open-water race. They're taking on water as they go. They have to grab it out of nets and then somehow drink it. THEY'RE SWIMMING IN A RESERVOIR! All they have to do is duck and swallow and they'd save seconds on the water pick-up. Jeez! Liam Phillips has finished 25th out of 30-odd BMX riders. He'll have another round to increase his position and then he'll race-off against a competitor in a seeded competition. So basically, he needs to hop round that track a damn sight faster if he expects to get a reasonable draw.

3am: The women have just set off in the first seeding run in the BMX race. The British competitor is called Shanaze Reade. She's the world champion in the event, and more impressively, she's from Crewe! Now I've got nothing against Crewe but it's not the first place I think of when I hear the words BMX. It's got an impressive Grand Junction though.

3.05am: I have just cursed Shanaze Reade. The poor girl takes a terrible tumble at the first corner and appears to have gashed her elbow and left leg. She manages to get back on and limp to the finish line, but now, everything is riding on her second run if she's to get a decent seeding.

3.10am: That was a great shame for Shanaze Reade. Although, it was good to see her looking angry rather than crestfallen when she finished. There were no Radcliffe-like tears despite the crushing disappointment of eating dust. A pedant writes: "You would have thought that if Mr Kamakazi was going to go to all the trouble of changing his name that he would at least have spelled kamikaze correctly. Maybe it's like getting an Equity card; there can't be two people with the same name and there is another BMXer with that name already," says Pommie Barsteward, who I presume changed his name by deed poll. I've not got an issue with the spelling Pommie Barsteward, but surely if they were true Kamakazes they wouldn't exist after the first round.

3.15am: Beleaguered Georgia just can't get assistance from the US. They've just been beaten in straight sets 2-0 in the men's beach volleyball semi-final. In the other semi-final Brazil are taking on Brazil. Yesterday we had a similar situation in the women's competition in which two Chinese teams competed against each other. This seems a bit odd to me. I'd have thought each country should only be able to enter one team each. Perhaps it's because there are not enough countries who are decent at beach volleyball out there.

3.20am: The British pair of Cassie Patten and Keri-Anne Payne appear to be using tactics to prevent the imperious Russian Larisa Ilchenko from getting past them. It's not a bad idea because as it stands the Russian will have to swim sideways to get around them. There is the possibility of one of Ilchenko just getting rough and barging her way through though. Which could be her only option. The swimmers have all just taken on water again. It's a bit of a farce to be honest though, as they hardly get a gulp down them. It's due to finish in 35 minutes so stay tuned folks.

3.25am: Liam Phillips has just made his second seeding run in the BMX but he couldn't improve on his first time so will probably have a tough draw in the quarter-final knockout stages.

3.35am: The Brits are still in the gold and silver medal places in the 10k open-water swim. One of the coaches has been shown a yellow card for throwing a drink at his swimmer instead of holding it out on a pole. I wonder if that means he'll be banned from coaching in the next open-water swim? Which will be when? This is the first one of these that I've ever seen. In fact, (MBMer adopts Columbo-like pose) is the Russian only unbeaten because she's never raced before?

3.40am: John Lamberson from beach volleyball-central, Hermosa beach, California, brings us the answer to the reason Brazil are playing Brazil in the men's semi-final. "Each country is allowed a maximum of two teams, as long as they are ranked in the top 24 in the world at the time of the games. There are a number of fairly boring reasons for this rule, which would put your already drowsy readers to sleep..." Eh watch it John! "But I would like to mention that there is a very large and impressive list of countries participating in international competitions, including a group of plucky Brits. About the only place it isn't played is the middle east and Indian subcontinent, which is understandable due to a general aversion to standard beach volleyball gear (bikinis and such)." This is the home of rules readers. Oh yes.

3.45am: There's a little under a 1km left in the open-water swim and the Brits are still leading. Former swimmer and Michael Phelps lookalike Stephen Parry reckons there's going to be fisticuffs in the final straight. I'd like to see how that takes place when they're underwater. But when there's gold up for grabs the Brits have been up for a scrap. Could this be gold No17 for Britain?

3.50am: This is the most exciting open-water race I have ever witnessed. I think you can guess why. The Brits are still gamely leading as they have done for 1hr51min so far. It's been one hell of a brave swim. None of the swimmers have been kicking their legs much in order to save their strength for the sprint finish, but expect them to start thrashing them like crazy anytime soon.

3.55am: Ilchenko has started to make her move wide in order to try to pass the wall made by Payne and Patten. They need to up their pace here with just about 200m left. It looks like they've pulled away far enough from the chasing group to guarantee a medal apiece, but Ilchanko is coming alongside now.

4am: With 50 metres left Payne is level with Ilchenko while Patten has dropped into third. This is an exciting finish.

4.01am: Ilchenko shows why she is world champion by pulling away by a couple of metres to take gold. Keri-Anne Payne finishes with a silver and Cassie Patten wins bronze. That was a brilliant effort by the British women. They put a hell of a lot of effort into leading for so long, but were rewarded.

4.04am: "Gregg... I can't get to a TV. Can you tell if any of the open-water swimmers are doing the Trudgen?" asks Tim Maitland. MBMer frantically searches for dictionary and finds a load of French gobbledegook that he can't understand. MBMer reads rest of email and sighs with relief. "It was the answer to a clue in the Times crossword in today's South China Morning Post ("developing swimming stroke" if you must know)." I didn't see much trudgening going on Tim, but I can tell you that Cassie Patten is mighty upset about the race. Apparently that pesky gold-medal winning Russian, Ilchenko was pulling on her feet to stop her from racing away.

4.10am: Right, back to the BMX and Shanaze Reade is about to go off on her second run. Remember she fell in the first so a good run is imperative if she is to give herself a decent draw in the semi-finals.

4.14am: There she goes... This time she flies around the first corner safely, hops over a dozen sandy hills and clocks a time of 36.8 to put herself second in the seedings. That was more like it. She's the world champion and showed why with that zippy run.

4.20am: "Just noticed that, according to the BBC live text commentary page medal table, GB have 16 golds, 0 silver and 0 bronze. Have we had them taken away from us for boasting?" asks a perplexed Mike Barraclough. Very strange Mike. Our site is still showing those medals to be in place but if British athletes suffer some bedroom burglary in the athlete's village (note to self - I might want to edit that at some stage, sounds wrong) we know which media organisation to investigate first.

4.30am: I can tell you that in the big one, oh yes, the one you've been waiting for: Men's Water Polo Classification 7-12, Match 1 - Match 3, the Canadians have been beaten by the Italians 13-11. Unlucky Canada. It's a bad day for fans of Maple leaves.

4.37am: I've just allowed myself a minute to watch the Taekwondo. It's pretty brutal stuff. I get the impression, above all else, the aim of the game is to kick the opponent in the head as hard as possible. The way they throw their legs about it's like watching that clip from Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, but just a tad more violent.

4.40am: "Is feet pulling ok then (all's fair in love and salt water?)" asks Claire Garner, who earlier was stunned by my personal reply to her email request for the finish time of the open-water swim. We're a friendly MBM bunch here Claire. "Or do we lodge an appeal or something?" MBMer flicks through his open-water swimming rules book. MBMer finds rule ZX12: I believe the chance to appeal has been lost because Ilchenko wasn't sanctioned at the time. She could have been given a yellow card apparently, but wasn't. I think that's why anyway. Ah, the BMX men's quarter-finals have just started. Brill!

4.45am: The first quarter-final gets off to a crashing start. This is great. BMXs tumble into each other left, right and centre as they fly over the jumps and race around the bends. From the resulting carnage M. Day of USA wins in a time of 36.170. In the second, less dramatic BMX quarter-final GB's Liam Phillips finishes fifth. There's a second run coming up though, so results will be confirmed after that.

4.50am: If you want to read all about GB's Keri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten's silver and bronze medals in the open-water swim you can do so here.

5am: The interweb's been down for a few minutes here so just catching up on your emails. "I'm wondering if the delay in the 10km medals is because Ilchenko may be getting disqualified for the leg-pulling incident," asked Pommie Barsteward. I've just seen the medal ceremony I'm afraid Mr Barsteward so that's a no-goer.

5.10am: ""What on earth is BMX-ing doing in the Olympics?" Harrumphs John Senior. "What next? Subbuteo? The 200m Scalextric time trial? On second thoughts, if the world champion's a Brit, let's pad the BMX-ing out with lots more categories for 2012. BMX Team Pursuit, BMX Individual Pursuit, BMX Madison, BMX Keirin, and BMX..." Whoah, hold on John, the BMX-ing has been great despite whether the Brits are any good at it or not. Perhaps it could be padded out to include all that X-Games business. Skateboarding and rollerskating can get involved too. Sod the Olympic purists!

5.12am: Meanwhile, the second run of the BMX quarter-finals have started and Mikey Day of the US still leads overall. Romero of Argentina takes a horrible fall and eats the tyre of the rider in front of him. Oooh! There's blood gushing from his torn elbow. He looks alright, despite the pain. GB's Liam Phillips finishes sixth this time round so I expect he'll struggle to qualify.

5.15am: "Open water swimming is brutal," whoops Jacob Murray-White. "They beat the hell out of [Grant] Hackett in the qualification and he ended up being disqualified." It looked a bit tasty out there when Patten and Payne were trying to keep ahead of the pack, but I can't imagine swimmers have the energy or inclination to take a swing at each other.

5.23am: "Paul in Sydney here..." Hiya Paul. "Good to see the Aussie Kamakazi lived up to his name, by being involved in a crash in his heat of the BMX. But I suppose 'Clean Run To The Finish' doesn't make for as snappy a name?" I think you'll find Rochdale rider Clean Run To The Finish didn't qualify for Beijing Paul. He was getting a tattoo of a bear put on to his forehead apparently.

5.30am: "Just saw the replays from yesterday's weightlifting," says eagle-eyed Kyle Hauptman. "Steiner from Germany won the heavyweight division (105kg) by lifting 258kg in the clean and jerk (that's over your head and holding it there for a moment) on his last lift." Crikey! "I'll throw this out there: of all the things that Olympians do, this could be the furthest from the average person's ability. A lot of things at the games are amazing, like swimming 10k, but just look at the weight these guys put above their heads. The human body/spine is NOT SUPPOSED to do that." Good shout Kyle, but you've flummoxed me. The only other thing I can think of is some of the jaw-dropping flips the gymnasts pull off. If we were all doing that whenever we made a trip to the corner shop the world would be a chaotic place.

5.35am: The third run of the men's BMX quarter-finals has just kicked off. GB's Liam Phillips needs a career-best run to qualify for the semis. The 20-year-old looks pensive at the start. With the number of crashes there have been so far it's little wonder why. And off they go...

5.38am: Oooooooh! Ooooowwwww! That had to hurt. About five riders - including Briton Liam Phillips - clatter into each other as they hit the first corner. Phillips gets to his feet and finishes seventh, which means he won't make the semi-finals. This has been a brutal spectacle. Kyal Bennett of the US has to have treatment on his left arm for five minutes before finally getting to his feet and milking the crowd's applause as he limps to the finish line.

5.45am: The wonderfully named Bob De Wilde (pronounced Builder) and Kamikazi are in action in heat three, run three. Australian Kamakazi tries to restore some national pride with a ballsy run to finish third. To all the Australian readers out there, your man should make the semi-finals now. Whether you care or not is another matter, but this is all that's happening at the moment so you'll have to bear with me.

5.50am: I can confirm that Australia's Kamikazi did indeed live to fight another day in the BMX. He qualifies with his compatriot Jared Graves for the semi-finals. I'm getting pretty delirious now so I'm going to pass the MBM baton onto Paolo Bandini, who looks much more alert than he probably feels. Thanks for all your emails. I hope we can get together again at the next big open-water swimming event. I can't wait!

6.15am Right then, the women's RS:X windsurfing is about to start, where Bryony Shaw is currently third in the standings, and can still win gold ... Actually, it already started once, but something went wrong so they're doing it all over again.

6.19am Shaw's off to a good start, they're definitely saying that a lot on the telly, but frankly the pictures they're showing me aren't helping me to work out exactly how well. We basically haven't seen her since the start ...

6.23am A snipped of TV commentary insight: "The wind has changed direction and that will favour Bryony Shaw ... But those pictures we're seeing now suggest I've actually got that wrong." I think my favourite thing about the Olympics is that in 64% of the sports involved, nobody really has a clue who's winning until the last 10 seconds.

6.29am "That Bmx sounds like good viewing," chirrups Scott Mellor, a man with a keen sense of hearing. "Unfortunately I'm in China and the only coverage I have is of the baseball where the score is China 0-17 Cuba. As I'm not familiar with this sport, could you tell me - is this good or bad for China? Otherwise the other sport covered is trampolining which is something I stopped participating in when i was 14." Your loss on the trampolining Scott, and as for the baseball I'd say that's average to good going when playing against Cuba ...

6.33am OK, in the last five seconds, the Beeb's commentary team has stated that we could be on for silver ... or bronze ... or gold in the windsurfing if Shaw maintains her current positioning. Apparently it's all about where the Chinese sailor finishes.

6.36am "According to my Chinese colleagues, Team GB are second," pipes up Steve George apropos the windsurfing. "Then again, two minutes ago they were asking me what the rules were ..."

6.41am China are right back in that baseball game at 17-1.

6.43am Ooh - could be trouble here in the windsurfing - Shaw was in the way of Spain's Alabau on a turn, and now the Spaniard's thrown a wobbly and called for the referee ...

6.44am ... But the umpire bounces over in his dinghy and raise a red flag against Alabau, meaning she has to do a penalty turn. Shaw looks a safe bet for a medal now, though it'll probably only be bronze.

6.49am Yup, bronze it is for Bryony Shaw, and she looks happy with that. Rather more happy is China's Jian Yin, who finished behind Shaw in this race, but retains gold, leaving Italy's Alessandra Sensini to take silver.

7.05am "While Team GB clearly deserves a great big pat on the back for doing so well in Beijing, I'm not sure if you understand quite what you're getting yourselves into," pipes up Scott Donaldson from Sydney. "I'd say you're only a couple of gold away from having an absolute stormer by anyone's estimation. This runs the huge risk that you lot will go the way of the Australian sporting media: taking everything far too seriously and oscillating wildly between blind hero worship and vindictive tall poppy bashing ... with nothing (amusing or otherwise) in between." I'm going to assume Scott's never been in England when the football's been on before.

7.13am Nothing too exciting for Team GB fans going on right now, so let's take a whizz round some of the other sports. France have beaten Russia 27-24 in the handball, Italy and Poland are tied at two sets all in the volleyball and a Canadian is running round the stadium wearing nothing more than a pair of bright red lycra hotpants at the softball. Have I just stumbled upon the real reason the IOC decided to cut the latter sport from the bill ahead of London 2012?

7.20am "Bryony Shaw deserves more credit than you have given her," states Jack Springate, correctly. "Most of our medals at this Olympics have come from the great British pastime of sitting on your arse (cycling, rowing, sailing). Surely a medal at an activity which requires standing up out of your seat warrants greater appreciation?"

7.28am "Hi, I've put together a simple page that ranks countries by their medals per capita and also by the GDP/medals for each country," offers Tom - speaking as if this was a perfectly ordinary thing to do. My life feels that little bit more complted now I know that Bahrain has the best ratio of gold medals to population of any country.

7.37am The men's RS:X is under way at last, with Britain's Nick Dempsey chasing another medal for Britain, having started the race second in the table. I'm not going to lie to you, I missed the start because I was busy watching Italy beat Poland in the quarter-finals of the men's volleyball.

7.40am Tom's table (7.28am) is about to get a lot more complicated. "If GDP matters, then perhaps government funding for Olympic teams should matter as well," parps Kyle Hauptman. "The USA is one of the few teams that get zero government funding - their funding is entirely private. Most people don't know this."

7.44am Things aren't going well for Dempsey. At last check he was seventh, and on course to finish fourth over all, though my experience of windsurfing would suggest that this may also mean that he is in any position from first to last and could still be on for either a gold medal or a pelting with rotten eggs. In the meantime, the French contestant has fallen off his board.

7.52amNew Zealand have taken gold in the men's RS:X, but it's still not looking good for Dempsey, who needs to pass the Frenchman in front of him to get bronze ...

7.54am Yeah, Dempsey's bottled it. Well, "bottled it" is probably a bit unfair - it was a very short race, just one lap, which made it nigh on impossible to recover from a less than sterling start - but hey, fourth place finishes won't improve that GDP/medals ratio any ... "Tom's tables are impressive, but not really water cooler material," opines Gary Naylor. "How about number of medals compared to number of media staff in Beijing on expenses (the BBC's Phelpsian numbers may hurt GB there), medals compared to drug convictions, medals compared to tears shed on podium etc?"

8.02am In their interview after the 10km open water swim, Patten and Payne suggested that they could look forward to business class flights home because they had both won medals. Extrapolating this further, can we assume that Yngling gold medal winner Sarah Ayton will be travelling in the posh seats, while fiancee Dempsey folds himself into an economy seat? Equally, will Mark Cavendish be the lone British cyclist in the back of the plane?

8.06am More fun with medal tables, as Tobias Trotter points us in the direction of the New York Times' medal map, which roughly resembles a normal map, only with each country replaced by a giant smartie that grows or shrinks in size depending on the number of medals they won in whichever Olympic year you select. Plus it's supported by some of the most gloriously awful muzak you've heard in some time.

8.20am I've been pondering over these last six minutes, and I've decided that synchronised swimming would definitely be my choice of sport to cut from the Olympics if the IOC wanted to get rid of one more before London 2012. Should the opportunity arise, I would replace it with crazy golf. Just because. Any other suggestions for sports we could do with in four years time?

8.28am It's quarter-finals time in the men's basketball and Spain are 37-26 up at half-time against Croatia. Which is rather low scoring, when you think about it. Iceland are beating Poland 28-26 in the handball.

8.34am At last, some clear-headed thinking from Andrew Jolly. "I think we should replace the synchronised swimming with Morris Dancing," he poses. "It's more or less the same, and let's face it, most countries other than GB are going to struggle to field a team."

8.43am Right, the combined effects of sleep deprivation and a whole morning without a British gold medal have turned my brain to goo, so I'm going to hand over to fresh-faced Robin Lynch. Thanks for all your emails.

8.46am: Morning all. If you've just started work and are looking forward to a long day's skiving, I'll bring you up to speed on today's highlights.

8.49am: We could see a third British boxer through to the semi-finals when middleweight James DeGale takes on Kazakhstan's Bakhtiyar Artayev at 1.01pm.

8.57am: In Athletics, the gold medal hopes (fairly optimistic hopes, to be honest) for Britain are Christian Malcolm in the Men's 200m (3.20pm) and Tasha Danvers in the Women's 400m (3.35pm). But of course, the big draw tonight will be Usain Bolt. Can he break Michael Johnson's record in the 200m? Will he actually run the whole race or stop halfway for a breather? What will Sue Barker say to a crestfallen Michael Johnson afterwards?

Wow, you guys really hate synchronised swimming. More on that in a minute.

9.01am: Watch out for Britain's Emily Freeman in the Women's 200m semi-finals at 3.04pm, Michael Rimmer in the Men's 800m first round and Somalia-born Mohamed Farah in the Men's 5000m first round.

9.03am: Finally, if you're Irish you can look forward (sort of) to Alistair Cragg in the men's 5000m first round and Darren John Sutherland in the middleweight quarter-final.

9.08am: But the real battle for Ireland at these Games is the light-heavyweight semi-final between plucky upstart Kenny Egan and imperialist nemesis Tony Jeffries. That's on Friday.

9.10am: In alternative sports news, Ryan Spencer wants to boot out synchronised swimming and bring in the multi-event-athlon. The MBM lawyer is peering over my shoulder but I can reveal that the multi-event-athlon consists mostly of petty crime and drug dealing. And he wants to base it in my neigbourhood! Harrumph!

9.10am: Leading the poll so far on new sports for Lahndahn 2012 are darts, snooker, morris dancing, Eton Fives and ....cheese rolling. Clearly you fine chaps have wandered on here by mistake while in search of the Daily Mail. But wait! Bruce Jackson raises a concern. "Synchronised swimming could be replaced by that chasing the cheese down a hill thing. Although there's always the suspicion that the French might be quite good at that," he says.

9.18am: More French-bashing. This time it's Tim Maitland. And he's not kidding.

"In defence of synchronised swimming it did provide one of the greatest sports stories of all time when it was pointed out to the French team prior to the Atlanta Games that their routine re-enacting the Holocaust (I kid you not) might be... err... a tad tasteless."

Do you lose points for flaming? Disqualification for using too many smileys? Bonus scores for raising LOLs from your rivals?

9.32am: "What about the 800m Freestyle Moaning-about-the-weather?" wonders Ben Holloway. I'd back it all the way Ben, if only because Ireland would take a clean sweep on the podium. All. Day.

9.36am: And if you've been punching your screen with rage at the thought if your beloved synchro swimming, here's a report what I wrote all by myself from this morning's action.

Russia's reigning Olympic champions, the "two Anastasias", defended their synchronised swimming duet gold medal on Wednesday with an almost perfect routine swum to the strains of Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt suite.Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Ermakova, undefeated at a major championships since finishing second at the 2001 worlds, scored a perfect 10 for technical merit from all five judges and earned another three 10s for artistic impression.Added to a commanding lead from Monday's technical routine, they easily claimed victory with 99.251 points, bagging a second gold medal for a collection started in Athens.

So there you go.

9.38am: "Beach Volleyball is the second most played sport in the world," lies Hazel Irvine. 800 million players worldwide, apparently. Keep the synchronised swimming I say, get beach volleyball out of there. I can't take it seriously since they played Tom Jones' magnum opus, Sex Bomb, during one of the games on Monday. I mean, really.

9.38am:If this anti-synchro swimming tirade continues, I shall have to inform Lord Coe. Michael Lee makes an anti-public school jibe, which I cannot repeat here, but involves Eton Fives and onanism. Ugh.

On a much more wholesome note, Mike Hopkin (who I suspect is a atudent, unemployed or 97) suggests Olympic Countdown. "Played with proper English spellings of course, so we'll always beat the Americans!" he huzzahs.

9.43am: Stuart Wilson also went to a comprehensive school.

"What about scrumping for apples, where public school boys line up to sneak tasty golden delicious out of the orchard? The last one to get dragged back to the dormitories by the janitor for a good towel whipping is the winner."

9.49am: Just to bring you up to date on the BMXing, in case you didn't stay up all night/don't live in Australia/haven't grasped how internet browsers work. Shanaze Reade who is going for gold (Gold! Always believe in your sooooul) will be top seed in tomorrow's semi-final, despite falling over on her first run.

Not so hot for Liam Phillips though. His Olympics are over after being knocked out in today's quarter-finals.

9.51am: My local neighbourhood, as well being blighted by petty crime and soft drugs abuse, is being terrorised by BMX gang warfare. The Switchblades currently have the upper hand over the Cobras, but to be honest I suspect most of them have played Eton Fives in the past. And probably morris dancing too.

9.57am: Earlier this morn, Britain's first Taekwondo competitor Michael Harvey suffered a gallant defeat to world silver medallist Guillermo Perez. Sadly for Mike, Britain don't cheer on gallant defeats any more. But he does have a chance of making the repechage if Perez reaches the final.

Harvey thought he had scored a winning point in overtime after fighting back from 2-0 down in the -58kg bout to tie 2-2. But the pesky judges scored for the Mexican.

Harvey said: "I caught his pad but obviously it wasn't hard enough or the judges missed it. I thought I had a good chance going into that last round but obviously it didn't go the right way. I did well because I was up against the world silver medallist but he was there to be beaten and I'm a bit gutted that I've lost. It's great experience for London 2012 but I wanted to go a bit further."

10.02am: Staunch republican John Senior has a pop at them lot in Buckingham Palace.

"Cut the synchronized swimming and revive It's a Knockout for 2012.Even better, let's have It's a Royal Knockout, with monarchs fromaround the world whacking each other with giant foam sticks whilebalancing on slippery poles above a pool of green slime. First one inthe gunk gets the guillotine..." he cries, pasting his stamps upside down and tearing up £5 notes as he does so.

10.06am: Drugs bust. There could be a shake-up in the heptathlon final positions after Ukrainian silver medallist Lyudmilla Blonska failed a drug test on the 'A' sample. If she fails the 'B' too, she'll lose her medal. This won't really affect Team GB's Kelly Sotherton, who was fifth.

10.15am: They haven't expelled athletes for swearing since 1912, but Britain's pottymouth windsurfing bronze medal winner Bryony Shaw pushed the IOC to their limits today (see 6.55am). It was one of the really bad ones, too.

10.19am: Plucky underdog corner. Tired of exulting in Britain's successes? Feeling the burden of superpowerdom? Yearning for the good old days of taking on the big boys?

"It was great, I still cannot believe it. We're such a small country and we won against a 40-million-people country. Now there's going to be a handball boom in Iceland," added the sadly misguided Alexander Peterssen.

"We get about 500 spectators per game," Iceland right back Olafur Stefansson added. "It's understandable, sometimes there's bad weather and you don't want to go driving 20 minutes through the snow when you can watch TV instead."Sometimes there's bad weather?

10.25am: Drugs update. Roger Cook, who I fear is not thoroughly embracing the Olympic spirit, says: "Don't be so negative about Kelly Sotherton's chances - look on it as one down, three to go."

10.28am: Olympic Swearing This why they call the BBC 'Auntie'.

"We apologise for any offense caused earlier today when Bryony Shaw swore live on air. Our reporter on the spot Rob Walker apologised immediately and Adrian Chiles apologised again when the footage cut back to the studio," a spokesperson said.

10.39am: Montenegro have beaten Croatia 7-6 in the quarterfinals of the Men's Water Polo. Which is nice, given that Montenegro only became an independent nation in 2006. They'll play Hungary in the semi-final.

I understand Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska's 'B' test has come out positive for anabolic steroids, not that you'd know from looking at the official website of the Games, where all is sunny and bright and nothing bad ever happens.

He fumes: "That Blonska lady grrr….! If you could have chosen someone to fail a drug test it would have been her." Bit harsh William, no?

He lists his reasons:1) Dodgy eastern European attempt at dyeing hair….check2) Ludicrously overly made up in attempt to hide steroid induced acne….check3) No humility whatsoever for her drug induced past….check

""For her part, Blonska has responded to such criticism by saying that using steroids was "a mistake in my life", and adding, "I have managed to prove that I can compete again"" So she got two years for her first "mistake" how can she explain her second - and proves that 2 year drug bans are a waste of time. Grrrrr."

10.52am: Five American bloggers have been arrested in Beijing for a pro-Tibet demonstration. No doubt they can live-blog from their cells. Or perhaps just a quick Twitter. With unhappy smileys.

10.55am: Down with Camembert. Not content with stealing their Olympics, Fran Schindler is now attacking the French cheese industry.

"I'm not sure that Bruce Jackson has to worry too much about France's potential prowess at cheese rolling. Surely their cheeses are so runny they'd get stuck in the grass half way down the hill?"

11.06am: Steve Johnson is wearing a knotted handkerchief on his head and a glum look on his face.

"I note your comments about Iceland's weather," he notes. "Is moaning about another country's weather fair game if we're going to include it in 2012? What are the rules? Personally I don't like the heat, so I'm quite happy to have a go at Australia if there's any shortage of that at present."

You could have a go at the French, Steve, but it's a bit of a bandwagon situation.

11.09am:Lyudmila Blonska is also down to compete in the Long Jump. It looks like she won't be taking any part in that, even if she promises to be very very good. And given that she has already served a two-year suspension from 2003-05, a lifetime ban is very much on the cards. That'll learn you.

The third-place finisher in the heptathlon was American Hyleas Fountain, who would be bumped up to the silver if Blonska is disqualified. Russia's Tatiana Chernova would move up from fourth to the bronze.

Matthew West says what we've all been thinking.

"Am I the only person who's a bit surprised by the dearth of failed drug tests so far? Have the athletes all decided that they won't get away with it or is the testing a bit rubbish? That said, as a fan of cycling, my idea of what constitutes a lot of failed tests may be slightly inflated."

11.20am: Germany are currently taking on China in their Women's Hockey semi-final. Next up is the Netherlands v Argentina.

The BBC are showing the synchronised swimming from earlier, but judging from the 4,956 e-mails I received demanding that synchronised swimmers be banished from the Games forever, the less said about that the better.

Paul Lloyd agrees: "I note the Beeb have had to find a North American of some description to commentate on the synchro. Clearly they couldn't find a Brit who could do it without cracking up."

11.26am: Trouble at mill. The nasty old Government are pulling a fast 'un on our Gold Medal Heroes. If you're in London, or indeed anywhere in western Eurasia, get down to Whitehall now with a misspelled placard and a shouty voice.

11.29am: I may have overexaggerated the dastardliness of our beloved leaders in the last post. You'll have to read Paul Kelso's article to make up your own mind.

It's 1-1 between Germany and China at half-time in the women's hockey semi-finals.

11.34am: The Men's 800m first round heats are coming up in about 20 minutes. For Great Brits, the words you'll need to shout at the telly are come, on, michael and rimmer. His best this season is 1:44.68min, which is the second fastest in his heat behind South Africa's Mbulaeni Mulaudzi.

11.39am: Dangerous combination of MBM and other activity alert. Peter Buckingham, what are you thinking?

"I am following all this from Italy while chopping down a major shrub. I fancy a tilt at the lumberjack gold in 2012. Start lobbying now please!" he says.

11.42am: For Irish readers, get your Thomas Chamney banners out ahead of the Men's 800m first round. But not too enthusiastically; his SB is 1:46.66min and his PB is 1:46.46min.

11.46am: Manchester's Michael Harvey has just lost his repechage match. He loses 2-1 to Afghanistan's Rohullah Nikpai.

Apparently, Taekwondo means "To kick or smash with the feet and destroy with the fist". So says Hazel Irvine. That's a lot for one word.

11.50am: Gary Naylor has unfurled his flag and it's got a big yellow hammer and sickle on it.

"The Government are absolutely right that the private sector should make good the £100m shortfall in funding competitors for 2012. 1% extra on corporation tax should cover it," he waffles.

Hmm. But with private backing, there will always be the problem of corporate apparatchiks sending terse e-mails saying: 'CorpoGloboMega Inc. feel that Bryony Shaw's conduct makes her unsuitable as a brand ambassador and as such should be downsized from the 2012 squad going forward."

11.58am: RATHER IMPORTANT NEWS There's a strong athletics programme today, including the Men's 110m Hurdles semi-finals, the Women's 400m Hurdles final and Usain Bolt in the Men's 200m final, and Anna Kessel will be blogging that live from the Bird's Nest.

I'll be following the cheese-rolling, towel-whipping, shove-hae'penny and backroom billiards live from the Coach and Horses in Farringdon.

12.12pm: I thought Tony Ellis was correcting my reporting but in fact he was making a funny:

"Now that she can't compete in the long jump, I suppose Blonska will have to make do with the high jump..."

Fnarr!

12.15pm: Michael Rimmer is limbering up while simultaneously ignoring the several hundred MBM readers who poked fun at his name.

12.17pm: They're off....

12.17pm: He's out front...

12.17pm: They're going very slow, it seems to me.

12.17pm: Come on!!!

12.18pm: Trouble for Rimmer. There's been an attack from the Pole, Pawel Czapiewski.

12.18pm: But it's no bother to Big Mike who ups his pace and comes in first ahead of Pole Pawel Czapiewski and the South African Mbulaeni Mulaudzi.

12.18pm: Phew! That was exciting. Especially for a first round heat. The Beeb talked to Rimmer afterwards, he's not happy but relieved to be through. He's been suffering from food poisoning and also hadn't intended to lead from the front. It's only two automatic qualifiers from each heat, and Rimmer was almost knocked back into fourth in the final 100m."I always perform better in the semi-final though," he says.

Inevitable gag: "Is it just me or is there anyone else out there who just can't get Red Dwarf's resident smeghead out of their mind when we keep hearing about Michael Rimmer ?" sniggers Steve Marsden.

12.26pm: Ireland's Thomas Chamney finished fifth in his heat, so virtually no chance of making one of the fastest loser slots.

12.30pm:Boxing Russia's Georgy Balakshin is taking on India's Jitender Kumar in the biggest clash of the superpowers since I Drago v R Balboa.

Britain's James DeGale is up in four bouts' time and Ireland's Darren John Sutherland in three.

12.39pm: Diving It's not looking great for Tonia Couch or Stacie Powell at the moment. The top 18 qualify for the semi-finals and Tonia is currently 23rd after her first dive, while Stacie is 29th*. Will them to win, Readers. Shout at your screen. Invoke your chosen deity. Whatever it takes.

*last.

12.45pm: Athletics Almost done in the men's 800m heats. Next up on the track is the Men's 5000m heats, while in the field it's currently the Women's Hammer Throw final.

12.51pm: Diving Ha! I told you organised religion works. Tonia Couch is up to 12th with her second dive. Stacie Powell's up next.

Athletics Bringing you updates on the hammer asap. It's all going horribly wrong out there...

12.52pm: Diving Boom! Powell up to 22nd. She'll need to reach 18th to make the semis though.

Hockey China have beaten Germany 3-2 and are into the women's final. The Netherlands vs Argentina up next.

1.07pm: Athletics China's Wenxiu Zhang has just thrown 74.40m in the hammer, which is quite good, I believe, and puts her into top spot.

Just to let you now that each competitor gets five dives in the 10m individual platform.

1.10pm: Ireland's Darren John Sutherland is taking on Venezuela's Alfonso Blanco Parra in the middleweight quarter-finals. Ireland have only two medals so far, guaranteed bronzes for boxers Kenny Egan and Paddy Barnes, so a win here would be a welcome boost.

1.12pm: Diving Tonia Couch scores 76.50 on her third dive, a big improvement on her first two, 67.20 and 63.00. She's in seventh now.

In the Boxing Darren John is getting the better of Parra, who is swinging wildly. It's 3-0 to Sutherland.

1.16pm: Boxing Great defence and a body shot with the left gives Sutherland a further point.

And he does it again! 5-1 now, after the Irishman dropped his guard for the first time in the fight and let Blanco in for a jab. It' s looking good for a third medal for Ireland here.

1.19pm: Boxing Parra beat Sutherland in the world championships but he is getting a pummeling here. And it's mostly due to a much improved performance from the Irishman, rather than a sloppy display from Parra. 9-1 at the end of the third and Blanco really cannot handle him, mentally or physically.

1.21pm: Diving Now it's Powell's turn to zoom up the board. She lies in 15th after a third dive of 75.20.

In the Boxing, it's medal number three for Ireland after a stunning performance from Darren John Sutherland. The Irish contingent are singing in the crowd and Jim Neilly is putting on corny Irish accents. Which is okay, cos he's Irish himself. But still a bit lame.

1.26pm: Blanco is the world silver medallist, Jim tells me. It was 11-1 in the end to Sutherland. He battered him.

1.30pm: Boxing It's cagey so far. DeGale leads 1-0 after the first round, a reward for a sharp left hook into Artayev's body.

1.32pm: More of the same from DeGale. He's moved in for a fast attack after a strong defence..and again! He concedes one that time as well, but he's getting on top. It's 4-1 to the Briton at the halfway mark. Artayev must find a plan B.

1.35pm They swap points early on, before another left jab from DeGale. He's standing back now on 6-3, and looking to take that lead into the final round.

1.36pm: He's done better than that, he's bumped it up to 7-3 and we look set for another GB-Ireland semi-final. Sutherland and DeGale have fought each other five times so it should make for an interesting bout. Still two minutes to go though..

1.39pm: 8-3 and DeGale is jumping with delight. That was a tough opponent - the world bronze medallist - and he outfought and out-thought him all the way through. Didn't go for unnecessary points and worked the counter-attack brilliantly. Bronze for Britain (at least). That's three bronzes so far for Britain, and three for Ireland.

1.43pm: Diving 62.40 for Tonia Couch on the fourth dive; not spectacular but enough to lift her in seventh place. She just needs a competent final dive top reach the semi-final.

Stacie Powell on the other hand is in 19th and outside the qualifying positions. She'll have to do better than that next time around.

1.47pm: Athletics Mo Farah is out front for Tea GB in the Men's 5000m first round heats. He looks comfortable. Well, as comfortable as a man can be after several laps of pegging it round an Olympic stadium in stifling heat.

1.50pm: Athletics Farah leads but the pack are on top of him. It's four to go through with one lap to go. This is the clutch play...

1.52pm: Yargh! Mo is slipping back...he's going nowhere.

1.52pm: They're sprinting away and Mo can only manage sixth. He'll have to wait and see if he makes one of the first loser slots.

1.54pm: A bad run for Farah. He topped a group of six and the other five all left him for dust inside the last 100m. The second heat is coming up now; Mo put on a final sprint to make sixth in 13:50.95mins.

2.02pm: In the Women's Hammer, Aksana Miankova of Belarus threw an Olympic record of 76.34m to take gold, with Cuba's Ypsini Moreno took silver with 75.20m and China's Wenxiu Zhang was third in 74.32m

Minkova seems to have wandered in from the 5,000m; she is really quite slender. Especially for a hammer thrower. Dagger stares in the changing-room, I reckon.

2.06pm: Factoid Three gold medals would lift Ireland to 18th on the medals table, as things stand. Three bronzes would mean....70th. In between Armenia and Taipei.

2.08pm: Athletics Ireland's Alistair Cragg is in fact still in with a chance of making one of the Men's 5,000m fastest loser slots.

2.11pm: Cragg ran 13:38.57mins with Spain's Aelemayehu Bezabeh ahead of him in 13:37.88mins. The final heat has just finished, and it's Australia's Craig Mottram in fourth with 13:44. That means Cragg will make the semi-finals with Juan Luis Barros of Mexico, who finished in 13:42.70mins.

2.16pm: The Diving has finished and both Couch (12th) and Powell (14th) will make the semi-final. They face a stiff challenge to progress further than that though. China's Ruolin and Xin Wang Chen finished first and second with Canada's Emilie Heymans in third.

2.23pm: Somewhere in Beijing there are men using poles to lift themselves over different poles. If anything amazing happens - such as one of the men losing one of their poles - rest assured you will be informed immediately . Well, not really. But definitely at some stage today.

2.27pm: It's the Men's 110m Hurdles semi-finals coming up now in the Bird's Nest. This, of course, was the event which Chinese sporting icon Liu Xiang was expected to win, before he hobbled off in the first round with an ankle injury.

And the Chinese are super annoyed. Because you can win all the judo, shooting and wrestling golds you want (and China currently have 45) but what you really want is a proper medal. Where people run and stuff.

2.32pm: False start in the 110m hurdles first semi...Back you go.

2.32pm: Here's a report from proper journalists on this afternoon's action. Read this for an account of James DeGale's pulverising of Bakhiytar Artayev.

2.33pm: Athletics The favourite, Dayron Robles of Cuba, proves he is the bestest with first place in his Men's 110m Hurdles heat. Behind him are David Payne of the USA, France's Ladji Doucoure and Jamica's Richard Phillips.

2.40pm In the second heat, and in the absence of Liu Xiang, China's Dongpeng Shi is carrying the hopes of 1.3b Chinese. No pressure there, then.

2.41pm: Shi dives desperately for the line..and falls over as he does so. Maybe no one noticed?

2.42pm: Oh no! Fifth by two hundredths of a second for Dongpeng Shi. Let the gnashing of teeth commence.

In first it's the USA's David Oliver then Poland's Artur Noga, Jackson Quinonez of Spain and another Jamaican, Maurice Wignall.

2.45pm: Jackson is an unusual name in Spain, I would imagine.

2.49pm: As promised, it's Men's Pole Vault news. Britain's Steve Lewis has successfully navigated the early stages of his qualifying round. There are two groups of 19, and 5.75m is the mark to beat. Failing that the 12 best performers in each round go through.

2.59pm:Pole Vaulter Steve Lewis is out.There's controversy.

3.05pm: I'll get the skinny on Lewis, as soon as the Women's 200m semi-final heat starring Great Britain's Emily Freeman is finished. So in around 20 seconds.

3.06pm: Women's 200m Alyson Felix, one of the favourites for this event, has won her heat. Emily Freeman is a long way back. Michael Johnson reckons that on these performances Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown will take gold in tomorrow's final.

3.10pm: It's time for the main events.

3.14pm: Men's 200m FINAL In about five minutes we'll see if Usain Bolt can do better than this.

3.17pm: For many people, Michael Johnson's performance in the 200m at Atlanta was track running at its very best and his world record of 19.32secs was expected to stand for a long, long time.

3.18pm: Johnson predicts 19.5 secs. But he would, wouldn't he?

3.20pm: Don't forget Team GB's Christian Malcolm is running in this event, as is reigning Olympic champ Shawn Crawford. And also Kim Collins of St Kitts and Nevis. But they won't win*.

*Disclaimer: They might win.

3.22pm: They're off...Bolt is off on a flyer ... he's miles ahead...this is almost a joke... the world record is gone!19.30 into a headwind!

3.24pm: Well that was amazing. I am shaking in my seat after an event that only lasted 20 seconds. Right from the start, Bolt peeled away in glorious fashion and unlike the 100m he kept it up right until the end.

3.26pm: From the man whose record we thought would stand for ever, Michael Johnson: "I would have tried to hit the 100m mark at 10.2, 10.3. He looks to have hit it in 10 flat. He's bending into the line, not because he wants to beat the other guys who are well behind him, but because he wants that record."

It's Martina Churandy of the Dutch Antilles in 19.82 and America's Shawn Crawford in 19.96. The USA's Wallace Spearmon was third, but has been disqualified for running out of his lane. We've just seen him walking round the track, celebrating a medal he's not going to get.

3.32pm: They're now playing Happy Birthday in the stadium for Bolt, who turns 22 tomorrow.

3.41pm: That's a magnificent result for Tasha Danvers, who wasn't expected to make the podium. Jamaica's Melaine Walker and the USA's Sheena Tosta, the two big stars, took gold and silver, but Walker slowed at the end and was almost caught by Danvers, who was almost passed herself by Ukraine's Anastasiya Rabchenyuk.

3.43pm: That's yet another unexpected result for a British athlete and the third track and field medal for Team GB with Phillips Idowu still to come in the triple jump.

3:53pm: Tasha Danvers reached the Olympic final in Sydney, before taking two years out to start a family. This year she's had Achilles problems in May before struggling in the British trials in Birmingham. And now she's exceeded expectations and taken bronze.

3.57pm: That's it from the Bird's nest for today. Don't miss Will Buckley on why those snooty toffs at Oxford and Cambridge should let Olympians use their facilities for 2012.

4.16pm: Check back in tonight at 1:30am for live coverage, reports, blogs and unrestrained jingoism.

Tomorrow's highlights for Britishers are Shanaze Reade at 3:30am in the BMX semi-final and hopefully final, and Phillips Idowu in the triple jump, starting at 1.30pm. Thanks for all your e-mails.